The left need to drop the authoritarian, neo-liberal bullshit and start working for the people or they’re going to keep losing to rightwing populists. The problem is, it seems like most of them, here in the US and abroad, would sooner see a crazed rightwing lunatic in power than change their ways, or move aside for populists on the left.
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Seriously, though, Fillon is, himself, an ultra-right, ultra-conservative, ultra-neo-liberal, ultra-catholic PoS, who is against Europe (maybe not as rabidly as “Brexit-Frexit” Marine, but still) and who has been endorsed by such fantastic people as Vladimir Putin and Bachar Al-Assad.
As a Frenchman, I personally don’t see the difference between him and proto-fascist Marine Le Pen - who (btw) has been under scrutiny recently for the same kind of fake jobs, but in the European Parliament. That man ought to be thrown into prison.
More Fillon news (in French), right here: http://paradedugrotesque.tumblr.com/tagged/francois-fillon
The truth is, French politics is in disarray: the so-called “Left” has been doing ultra-liberal policies for years, the “Right” has been pushing forward a whole generation of know-nothing rabidly stupid “Trumpian” politicians, leaving the door wide open for Marine Le Pen and her jack-booted thugs.
So, yeah, Marine Le Pen = bad. François Fillon? Just as bad, but superficially more respectable and “acceptable”.
And don’t get me started on the other PoS whose name is Emmanuel Macron. That guy has been stealing just as much money as Fillon and Le Pen put together. A pox on all their houses, I say.
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Le Canard is awesome. It has been around since 1915. It has been sued by many politicians. It has never lost to them. I wonder if they could set up an American Press…
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Wait…is this right-wing politician acknowledging that raising children is hard work deserving of policies that support it, including financial assistance to families? Hey, if he wants to provide ample publicly-funded salaries to the early childhood workforce, I think we may be able to find some agreement…somehow I don’t think this applies to the non-his-wife populations of the world…
That was the US election this past year, sort of. We had one right-winger who was a totally unhinged nutjob running against another right-winger who was smoothly calculating and not at all nuts.
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I feel like the current crop of anti-democracy, racist parties taking power are pretty isolationist rather than expansionist, though I guess it really only takes one.
I’m neither American nor French, but that strikes me as a BIG sort of. I’ve read plenty of analysis that talked about how Hillary was a shill for Wall Street, either because of her connections or because of her husband.
There is also analysis that looks at her voting record, etc. It suggests she falls right in line with some of the widely accepted left wing figures in the Democratic party. Of course this is a relativist argument, and the Democratic Party as a whole has taken a rightward shift in recent years, so maybe that is damning her with faint praise?
I’m much less familiar with Fillon, but he has opposed gay marriage and abortion, and is currently promising to gut the civil service and handcuff socialized medicine. Those things sound like standard right-wing stuff, but my impression is that the gulf between Le Pen and Fillon is much less than that between Trump and Clinton.
I’d say Putin qualifies as an exception.
And Trump’s strange fascination with taking people’s oil makes me wonder how principled his isolationism really is.
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I’m not sure what to think about Putin. I wasn’t really thinking about him as part of the new crop of roll-back-the-clock leaders, since he’s been around for a while now.
I think Trump might regard the middle east as a pirate treasure map rather than as a group of nations inhabited by human beings.
Anyway, if WW3 starts soon I think it will be over a personal slight against Trump. But if Le Pen does want to conquer Germany, I wouldn’t exactly be shocked, just appalled.
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NPR has been covering the right wing in Europe and they talked about the leader of the German right wing party this morning. Apparently, other conservative parties have adopted their anti-immigration talking points to one extent or another. Merkel isn’t very popular right now and the coalition she’s built falls apart… that’s not good news.
So. Iceland and Canada, maybe.
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Now, now… she kicked out her openly antisemitic dad, isn’t that good enough to avoid being called a nazi?
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I wish we could. I don’t think we can. Things are escalating out of control here.
To the barricades?
I think I can stay calm. The watch stands firm and true, the watch on the Rhine.
She is more controversial than she used to be, but in the leading poll for that kind of thing her administration still has an approval rating of over 70 percent. That could be worse. The only two politicians who receive a more favorable rating personally are to the left of her and part of her coalition.
If you mean the informal coalition of her supporters, then it is true that there is some strain because she has alienated quite a few people on the right. If you mean the formal coalition in parliament, then as a “grand” coalition that has never been more than a least bad option, but most likely it isn’t going anywhere after the next election.
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Oh, that’s good to hear! The way the media here have been talking about German politics, the coalition was seeming fragile and on the verge of collapse. Good to know that the left is more robust than that and helping to keep the least bad option together (especially as the bad keeps looking worse from the right). Maybe I should start backing my information from NPR with the English language Der Spiegel or something (in addition to occassionally reading the BBC or the Guardian).
Thanks!
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Maybe. No place is safe from nativist politics and Trump-like populism. I don’t think Canada could ever be considered immune.
We have two or three Trump-lites running for leadership of the Conservative Party, a disproportionate amount of political power concentrated in rural areas, and the states that border Canada’s most populous province (Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania) all went Trump. Those states have a lot in common, economically and demographically, with Ontario.
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No, but it could hold the line until sanity can be reasserted elsewhere. At least I hope it can…
I guess it depends on how popular the Trump-lites are up there and how popular Trudeau is? As well as many situations that are out of the hands of the government. An economic crash would not look good for the party in power and could push people to the other side…
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Canada will elect a slightly more respectable, Canadian Trump in six years, possibly two if things go badly before then. Our government promised us electoral reform that would make this much harder, but they are balking.
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neoliberalism is a right wing project.
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I’m aware of that, but in most western democracies, the center-left parties have adopted it wholesale. Clinton and Obama are classic neoliberal corporatists, as are most of the labour MPs in the UK.
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